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chown33

Moderator
Staff member
Aug 9, 2009
10,740
8,416
A sea of green
The publication date for that particular book is 1997. The most recent version of C++ approved by ISO is C++11, in August 2011. So unless there's a newer version of the book that covers C++11, my first guess would be that the book is out of date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C++11

Then again, you don't say what OS version you have, what tools you're using, etc. So you may not even have a C++11 compliant work environment. In that case, the book would probably be fine, unless there's a version newer than 1997 that improves on the 1997 edition.

Assume every book contains errors. Without a way to get a list of those errors, you will have problems. For a book as old as 1997, there may not be a website that lists the errors and their corrections. So keep that in mind when choosing books.
 

Marjamrob1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2012
114
0
Thank you, I did end up grabbing it, since it was only a dollar, on clearance, at Half Price Books. It is pretty good, and our work hasn't even begun to consider moving to C++11 so, I will give it a while...
 

N-M

macrumors newbie
Jan 29, 2013
7
0
Has anyone read this or has any information on whether it is still good and relevant?
Link

1997 == ancient.
That's even before the first standard (1998).
Using it would be a bit like isolating yourself in a cave, devoting your time to learn Old English, hoping that you can still communicate in the modern world when you come out. In certain sense, could be an amusing experience, although one I wouldn't personally recommend ;-)

Consider the books in the following:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list

For C++1998/2003 I'd recommend this one: http://www.acceleratedcpp.com/
// I can guarantee you, going through ~ 350 pages of "Accelerated C++" is going to be more productive than going through ~ 950 pages of your 1997 book.

For C++2011, try one of these: http://isocpp.org/get-started
For instance, http://www.informit.com/store/c-plus-plus-primer-9780321714114
// I'd still recommend it even if you're not using C++11 yet (note that C++11 material is clearly marked as such in this book), the coding practices in C++ have changed significantly over the years (e.g., automatic resource management has become much more popular) and you can get a significant amount of C++11 goodies from Boost, too.
 
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